I almost continue the previous question posted by Shinova. Actually I use Maya for my work, mainly for modelling, texturing, rendering purposes and I'm not an animator. What advantages can offer me Houdini over Maya (if any)? I should notice that I am not a programmer but an artist. Though writing scripts is not a problem for me, I appreciate clear workflow when I can put most of my efforts on artistic aspect of the work, not technical.

Thank you.

PS I beg pardon for my possibly bad English.

westiemad

10-01-2004, 10:13 PM

i have used houdini apprentice, and I wasn't hugely keen on it, i'd say stick with maya, but then again you might as well download the free version and have a play with it, a lot of software is personal preferance.

AnDy

Shinova

10-02-2004, 12:24 AM

The short time I've had with Houdini taught me a thing or two:

- Proceduralism is hella powerful. Especially when your preplanning work for the scene at hand didn't go too well and you have to change something mid-fly. Houdini's object-based structure makes that easy.

- That said, this proceduralism aspect also detaches you from the scene. You feel more like you're designing a program rather than structuring a piece of art. You feel disconnected from the scene, essentially. Very artistic types will not like Houdini, from what I can tell.

So Houdini can make things get more "technical" rather than "artistic".

The proceduralism is great, especially when needs and plans change mid-way through a project. But then again, as it is now, you definetly feel more like you're programming rather than making art.

jiversen

10-02-2004, 12:41 AM

Well said about the personal preference bit..

In houdini you need to do (contrary to popular belief) extremely little scripting. An maya artist will write a ton on MEL on a project, writing things almost daily - whereas the average houdini artist might write 3 lines in as many months. That being said, the workflow/mindset of Houdini can be technical and sometimes not for the faint-hearted. The problem is that although you do have excellent "artistic" modeling tools and character tools that you will find yourself being drawn into the dark side of starting to be obsessed with creating clean and logical procedural modeling history. Gone will be your days of disregard for the precious mesh and what defines it! Its a delicious pain and I love it :)

Artistic? Z-Brush, maybe?

GTudela

10-02-2004, 12:59 PM

I think like jiversen, and I could add that the continous use of Houdini gives the user a clean idea of how and when a piece have to be modeled, animated... etc.

The words "creating a clean and logical procedural modeling history" have a great message inside them, we could say that houdini "teaches you" how to develop a fast and clean workflow.

About the artistic or not artistic nature of the software, imho every 3D suite has an artistic orientation, Houdini its also artistic but has infinite more control over your art than the most other 3d apllications out there. Its simply that, if you want a complete control about your artwork, or in the other hand, You want to left some of the aspects of your artwork to the "default" or in most cases "non modificable" parameters of your current 3D app.

jiversen

10-02-2004, 04:54 PM

Also, to me it partially depends on what you're doing - if you're doing it mostly for fun, as a student or in a relaxed environment then perhaps other software has greater ease-of-use for you. If you work in a high-pressure environment like feature production where not only to you have to be accurate and artistic, you have to be able to accept changes over and over again. When you're hitting version 56 of a single element in a scene (like shingles being ripped from a roof), the last thing you want to do is delete nodes and try again... and again.. and again. Having the persistent, flexible, modifiable operator chain makes these types of artistic revisions on an element possible without you feeling suicidal from doing repeat operations.

In the character field, Houdini is just starting to bloom. If you look at the raw tools in the package for character, I challenge to you beat their functionality. Superb bones, capture and weight-painting, manipiulation, posing, mirroring, wiredeformers, pose-space model extraction and -too boot- you can get right inbetween the capture and deform process and do anything you want there. There is currently a feature in production using exclusively Houdini for every element and that will put many peoples (mine too) minds at ease:)

Take care,
Jason

dantea

10-03-2004, 05:26 AM

Personally, I think Houdini offers a lot for the artistic modeller as well. For example, look what David Rindner (one of the first people who jumped on board when Side Effects first released Houdini Apprentice) says about it:
http://www.sidefx.com/products/apprentice/profile/david_rindner/

I think David put it best when he said, "Houdini allows me freedom to experiment, develop alternate designs, and keep the modeling process fluid." You can copy/paste node branches of your model and then experiment with different artistic decisions, easily comparing them. Contrast this with Maya, where you can only have one shape node per object. But perhaps, as an experienced modeller, he uses that flexibility more so than others.

If you read the Side Effects forum in those early days, you would never would have guessed that David Rindner would have been a Houdini convert. :)

saguaro

10-04-2004, 11:09 AM

Thank you all very much. It was very interesting to know your opinion. I think I should try Houdini and to decide if it suits my needs. I appreciate Maya for its interface, nodal system and paintfx is great tool. But I'm curious to try what is the procedural Houdini like. BTW, can anybody tell where can I find Houdini tutorials for beginners? I failed to find any except for those on the sidefx page.

MatrixNAN

10-04-2004, 10:17 PM

Hi,

The Modeling in Houdini like they said can get very technical but at the same time it can also become more artistic. Here is the difference with houdini you don't just look at the viewport the whole time while you are modeling you also look at the chain of nodes creating it. You can and probably will like me switch back and forth between the two constantly creating new objects from nodes that already exist and then take all the modified parts from that you created branching from one node and bring them all back together as one object again and then continue on your merry way working back in the viewport. The number of modeling tools and the number of features for the tools are more than maya. Its an excellent modeling package. They have more Nurbs tools like pasted nurbs. They also do not hide anything from you while you are working which is going to make things more difficult while you are learning but much faster once you are up and going. You can literally model your character or scene to be modeled in parts that switch on the fly based on what the animator wants to do just by moving a slider. You set up with a switch surface operator and then you can switch between different pieces of geometry on the fly. Texturing and rendering well on houdini that gets really technical and deep compared to maya. The shading system is based around RenderMan so yeah you have more control than maya but you also work at a much lower level too. So I guess its a question of how deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go. You can create shader surface operation tools to become part of your modeling tool set that you just apply when ever you need them not to mention they can be fully animated. So you can do so much for the modeling side and the shading side. Texturing in Houdini is easy in Houdini. Its pretty much like maya except the paint on surface tools has more attributes to play with than maya so you have some more options. I personally after working on Houdini could never go back to maya for modeling unless some one stuck a gun to my head. Houdini is just so much more flexible and fast once I learned to the workflow which I will have to tell you took awhile because to a certain extent I had to relearn how to think since I had been on maya for awhile. I had to learn that I could do practically anything and there was no restrictions placed on me like in maya. So that takes some getting use to and you have to start thinking that way to really take advantage of houdini. Your modeling workflow process will be wildly different than in all the other Major 3D Apps. Anyhow thats just my thoughts. By the way get the 3D Buzz videos because he makes it so easy to transition into the thinking you will need to work on houdini. Watching the sidefx videos will frustrate you at first because its just to much of a transition all at once but after you watch the buzz videos you will appericate having the sidefx videos there to watch and learn from. They also have extensive model tutorials in pdf form that you need to look up on SideFx's site.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

saguaro

10-05-2004, 12:31 PM

Gone through the simple tutorial.. No difficulties yet, but can you explain what the difference between maya nodes and houdini's? I also wonder if there something like maya paintfx in houdini?

saguaro

10-05-2004, 02:11 PM

I wonder, how do they model hairs, fur or plants in houdini? I'm also very curious to see pictures, made in houdini. Is there any gallery of such works?

dantea

10-05-2004, 02:58 PM

Try http://www.odforce.net .... The forums there are much more active than this Houdini forum. :)

saguaro

10-07-2004, 11:11 AM

Houdini's procedural system works great, at least on simple geometry that I tried. How is it effective, if working on a complex organic models? Suppose, I model a human head with polygons using a subdivide SOP. There should be quite a lot of mesh editing, moving vertices etc. Does it all requires a SOP for each action(group of actions)? It seems to me, that when the network becomes too complex, it also becomes almost useless. I may misunderstand something.. I'd like to know the approach of Houdini users on modelling complex organic shapes.

Thank you.

jiversen

10-07-2004, 04:21 PM

I replied to your post here:
on ODFORCE (http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2243&st=0&p=14185&#entry14185)

I also replied to your question about Plants and PaintFX in maya compared to houdini at odforce. Same link Jason threw up there.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

mestela

10-09-2004, 03:14 PM

I think one of the more telling proofs in the maya vs houdini debtes comes from looking at the user base.

Most of the ones I've met are brilliant maya operators, that have many years experience in maya/power animator. They don't use houdini because its the only thing they know, they choose houdini over maya when its the better tool for the job, which seems to be almost every time.

Ok - I'm kidding. On the other hand that's partially true, coz the only 3D package where you can find true nodes and true proceduralism is Houdini. Nodes in Maya is just a mere echo of the real voice. Nodes in Houdini is what Maya is secretly dreaming of.

saguaro - you are saying that your networks are becoming too complex and useless... well - you can't be serious insisting that this is not yours but Houdini's drawback - or can you? ;-) Is it the mirror's fault that you don't like what you see in it? As soon as your skills improve you won't have these problems any more.

Mentioning your desire to see some pics you can get in Houdini in comparison to Maya.. - that's just rediculous, man - is it the program that will make your image look great or is it YOU who is supposed to do that? On the technical level there's literaly nothing that Houdini can't do in comparison to Maya.

Touching the so popular misconception that Houdini is for programmers and Maya is for artists... That's again nothing more than another myth. What would you tell me if I say vice versa - that it is Maya that is for programmers, because you'll do MEL scripting for 80-90% of the stuff you would normally do with just nodes in Houdini? :cool:

The only more or less reasonable advantage that Maya still has is, imo, its' mega plugins i.e. Clothes, Fluids, Fur and Hair. Concerning Fur and Hair - this can be done in Houdini indirectly (it's not just a matter of point'n'click as in Maya. Someone in odforce mentioned this - you'll have to use some 4 nodes for that..). As far as clothes and Fliuds are concerned - these will be implemented in the next version of Houdini - DOPs (Dynamic OPerations). So basycally in a year or something Houdini will be a 100% equivalent of Maya (in the sense of its' mega-plugins advantages) + true proceduralism + versatile'n'fast particles (that Maya can only dream of) and dynamics system + many more.

And, BTW - why thinking about Houdini if you like what you are using now?
Maya is a nice package - just stick to it and don't burden yourself.

saguaro

10-11-2004, 08:41 AM

Ok - I'm kidding. On the other hand that's partially true, coz the only 3D package where you can find true nodes and true proceduralism is Houdini. Nodes in Maya is just a mere echo of the real voice. Nodes in Houdini is what Maya is secretly dreaming of.

Well, for me at this stage it looks like the Houdini have a proper interface for manipulating with nodes, while Maya does this through the set of tools. The principal structure of these packages doesn't differ much. Am I right?

saguaro - you are saying that your networks are becoming too complex and useless... well - you can't be serious insisting that this is not yours but Houdini's drawback - or can you? ;-) Is it the mirror's fault that you don't like what you see in it? As soon as your skills improve you won't have these problems any more.

I understand quite clearly that improving my skills will make things better. :) I just try to think of the way the realistic character modelling goes. In my experience, this involves many vertices/polys moving, changes that can't be described by mere procedures (or, at least, I don't see the way it can be described). I think whether it would't look as comlex net of polysplit, edit, transform operators that may not give any significant advantage over the same process in Maya. That is what the question was about.

Mentioning your desire to see some pics you can get in Houdini in comparison to Maya.. - that's just rediculous, man - is it the program that will make your image look great or is it YOU who is supposed to do that? On the technical level there's literaly nothing that Houdini can't do in comparison to Maya.

Yes, agree. The 3D software won't make you an artist. I was just curious.
Concerning the technical issue, there is literary nothing that any high-end 3D package can't do in comparison to each other. The difference is in how easy, clear, flexible and _fast_ the workflow can be.

Touching the so popular misconception that Houdini is for programmers and Maya is for artists... That's again nothing more than another myth. What would you tell me if I say vice versa - that it is Maya that is for programmers, because you'll do MEL scripting for 80-90% of the stuff you would normally do with just nodes in Houdini? :cool:

Agreed. :)

saguaro

10-11-2004, 08:55 AM

And, BTW - why thinking about Houdini if you like what you are using now?
Maya is a nice package - just stick to it and don't burden yourself.

I already answered that question. The difference is not in "what the 3D package can do?" but in "how it can do?". I used 3d max some time ago and once I tried Maya I switched to it because it let me do things easier and faster (I understand that max users can argue with me but that is a matter of personal preferences). By trying Houdini I'm looking for more efficient solutions in my work process. There is always something to improve, you know. ;)
And I repeat what I told before, that 3D software won't make anybody an artist.

MADjestic

10-11-2004, 10:50 AM

Well, for me at this stage it looks like the Houdini have a proper interface for manipulating with nodes, while Maya does this through the set of tools. The principal structure of these packages doesn't differ much. Am I right?Actually nodes in Maya and Houdini differ alot.

First (and if I'm mistaken - correct me) nodes in Maya are mostly the nodes you see in Hypershade or you can edit different functions in MEL. So in Maya there are normally (aside from MEL) no nodes for basic transform operators, for example scale, point/vertex edit, move, rotate, etc. To do it you just click those and edit. Of course you can edit those in the Channels (and in MEL) - but aside from MEL or channels - you don't see any "nodes" - just objects in the viewport and icons of instruments/operations and that's it. While in Houdini you create an object and nodes are all there, procedurally representing the whole process of creating your object and modifying it (somewhat simillar to modifications panel in MAX, with the exception that you can always return to any node you created before, modify it and all the changes will procedurally effect all the nodes higher in the hierachy )... you know what - you gotta see that! It's just 100 times better to see it once, then read about it 100 times - just go to www.3dbuzz.com (http://www.3dbuzz.com/) - sign for Houdini101 free course, download the Creating Networks VTM (video tutorial) (if I' not mistaken it's creating networks tutorial - it's that about creating a monitor and then making it jump as a jelly-ball) - see it and enjoy! It'll take you about 10 minutes to sign up and 20-30 minutes to see the tutorial. If you still have questions "what's this proceduralism for and how it is different from Maya" after that(!)... I guess then Maya would be a better choice for you.

saguaro

10-11-2004, 12:54 PM

Actually nodes in Maya and Houdini differ alot.
First (and if I'm mistaken - correct me) nodes in Maya are mostly the nodes you see in Hypershade or you can edit different functions in MEL.

Hypergraph, you mean? Houdini's interface for manipulating with nodes is very similiar to Maya's Hypershade, but allows to work over the entire scene. Hypergraph is a nodal representation of the whole scene in Maya with abilities to edit it. I wish Maya developers would make a Hypergraph with Hypershade-like interface. ;)

So in Maya there are normally (aside from MEL) no nodes for basic transform operators, for example scale, point/vertex edit, move, rotate, etc. To do it you just click those and edit. Of course you can edit those in the Channels (and in MEL) - but aside from MEL or channels - you don't see any "nodes" - just objects in the viewport and icons of instruments/operations and that's it. While in Houdini you create an object and nodes are all there, procedurally representing the whole process of creating your object and modifying it (somewhat simillar to modifications panel in MAX, with the exception that you can always return to any node you created before, modify it and all the changes will procedurally effect all the nodes higher in the hierachy )...

In Maya I can do almost the same in Hypergraph. I cant create nodes any other way than with tools, but I can, for instance, extrude, split, edit vertexes, smooth and than go back to extrude node, change parameters, or make it "not active" (like bypass flag in houdini). Of course, it is not so convenient as houdini's way of doing this.

you know what - you gotta see that! It's just 100 times better to see it once, then read about it 100 times - just go to www.3dbuzz.com (http://www.3dbuzz.com/) - sign for Houdini101 free course, download the Creating Networks VTM (video tutorial) (if I' not mistaken it's creating networks tutorial - it's that about creating a monitor and then making it jump as a jelly-ball) - see it and enjoy! It'll take you about 10 minutes to sign up and 20-30 minutes to see the tutorial. If you still have questions "what's this proceduralism for and how it is different from Maya" after that(!)... I guess then Maya would be a better choice for you.

Thank you. I'll try this.

MADjestic

10-11-2004, 04:53 PM

Here's just another example what you can do with nodes in Houdini (that's what what one of my friends did):

He rendered a deep raster image of the scene, created a Light source in OBJs (it's the "main" Houdini's desktop where you create and setup the scene and lighting) and procedurally piped the new Light node to COPs (that's a compostiting desktop in Houdini) where he created a node to use surface normal information found in a deep rastor image to re-light the scene. So he just moved his Light in OBJs Desktop - and automaticly the Light changed it's position and orientation in COPs (in a composited image)!

It's not something extraordinary. It's just an example of what proceduralism is and what you can do with it. The principal difference, imo, is that Houdini is 100% node based - it's all nodes and nothing but nodes - everithing you can see in Houdini is nodes - even the desktops themselves (OBJs, COPs, SOPs, etc.) are represented as nodes at a certain level and thus can be procedurally linked. It's all the same philosophy and no matter what desktop (or module - POPs, COPs, etc.) you are using - it's all the same interphace and philosophy - you just feel at home no matter "where" you are. In Maya things are essentially different, just let's take Hypershade and Hypergraph as an example - as you say - it's all nodes also, but in Maya's case you always get a feeling (correct me again if I'm wrong) that nodes were created as an aditional instrument to be used in Maya, you can use them at a much more limited extent than in Houdini. If Maya is node based - why then you can't creat a node another way than using some tool? - why not making it more node-oriented, to make more instruments to manage your nodes, to make it all nodes. Can you see Channels as a node in Maya? Or Dynamics as a node? Or see your renderer and rendering options as a node?I guess no.

- nodes in Maya (I believe Alias first had a great idea about nodes in Maya, but, alas..) always look as an instrument in an instrument, incoherent, as a great idea the was never fully realized and you alway get just a part of advantages of nodes and proceduralism.

JonBath

10-12-2004, 01:06 AM

i found houdini extremly frustrating,i couldnt do anything in it except pan a cube in the view ports

jiversen

10-12-2004, 03:46 AM

I think many things can be done in either package - it's just that the presentation to the user is different and dictates an alternate workflow. In Houdini you have no choice but to be acquainted intimately with working with nodes. You are constantly rewiring nodes and going back in "history" - although you never ever regard it as "history" as you often do in Maya. It is the fundamental definition of your object. Only in the pure modeling task for complex organic models do you begin to travel up the tree less often, mainly because there a million little tweaks, cuts, deletes, etc all which totally rely on each other when you model such a thing. To start rewiring nodes in Maya you have to be an intermediate to advanced user. In Houdini its the default way of working. Take your pick.

It's just becomes a preference of which way you wish to work because I swear to you on them apple's mother's grave, you can do a little more than pan a cube in the viewports.

MADjestic

10-12-2004, 05:42 AM

I swear to you on them apple's mother's grave, you can do a little more than pan a cube in the viewports NO WAY!!! Panning a torus perhaps???

=)))

Personally I know 2 MAX users who started using Houdini and are happy now, 1 XSI user, who found Houdini extremly logicaland easy to use (though I'm not sure what are his current prefrences), 1 Maya user, who hassled with Houdini for some time, dropped it and started using XSI =))), and alot more, who took a look at Houdini (not eve trying to go deep into it) and said "HOLY CRAP! WHAT A F**K IS THAT?!!!" and immediately uninstalled it. =) So - make your choice.

And yes - too often Houdini get's very frustrating in the beginning. It's not your or Houdini's fault. It's just that Houdini is different from any software on the market, and it is an exception from the general rule "You learn one of them - you learn them all".

saguaro

10-12-2004, 08:32 AM

Only in the pure modeling task for complex organic models do you begin to travel up the tree less often, mainly because there a million little tweaks, cuts, deletes, etc all which totally rely on each other when you model such a thing.

That is what I have to do very often - a million of little tweaks, cuts etc. That is what all my uncertainty about. I'm afraid that Houdini won't give me any noticable advantage in this kind of work and I'm wasting time messing around with it. Though I think I realized the power of proceduralizm, or, at least, I've seen the top of the iceberg. ;)

To start rewiring nodes in Maya you have to be an intermediate to advanced user. In Houdini its the default way of working. Take your pick.

The funny thing is that I had never went so deep in Maya's nodal sistem until tried Houdini. ;)

That is what I have to do very often - a million of little tweaks, cuts etc. That is what all my uncertainty about. I'm afraid that Houdini won't give me any noticable advantage in this kind of work and I'm wasting time messing around with it. Though I think I realized the power of proceduralizm, or, at least, I've seen the top of the iceberg. ;)

You could take a look at this thread - some great modeling here: http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1657

The funny thing is that I had never went so deep in Maya's nodal sistem until tried Houdini. ;) Haha! I can imagine that. :)

Maybe it depends on whether you ever plan to do more than modeling too. Look to the future of the packages, not just the immediate popularity.

You could take a look at this thread - some great modeling here: http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1657

Thank you for this link. Impressed. :thumbsup:

Haha! I can imagine that. :)

Maybe it depends on whether you ever plan to do more than modeling too.

Well, actually I plan to be a modeller-texturer. The life is too short to become a proficient animator in addition. :sad: Actually, I'm thinking of using Houdini for modelling purposes, using export to other apps (the studio where I work uses Maya and Max mainly and no Houdini at all). The situation when I have to return to my previously made model to make changes as if it is a new model is ordinary and I hope Houdini can make my life a little bit eazier and work more efficient.

Look to the future of the packages, not just the immediate popularity.

Yes, right! That is one of the reasons I looked for some more tutorials for Houdini. ;) There are not much of them as I see. :hmm:

MatrixNAN

10-13-2004, 11:34 AM

Hey ThemApples,

Watch the 3D Buzz videos and then it will make sense to you. Otherwise trying to follow the sidefx videos for a beginner can be kind of rough. Buzz lays out how the program works and how to get around in it. Sign up for the Houdini course at www.3dbuzz.com and you will then start to understand how to use and manipulate the package. Houdini has a sharp learning curve but buzz breaks down the differences between houdini package and maya and other packages to help ground your feet as to where you are going. If you don't watch the learning videos I would be shocked if you just learned houdini straight out of the box by just clicking on things.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

CoolDuck

10-13-2004, 05:13 PM

I have tried Houdini Apprentice a while ago and it impressed me a lot! What most amazed me is the procedural system and the power you have with it, but it was also a nightmare. I wasn't used to it that you need nodes for everything, even when you want to select components of a model. At first it isn't very easy to use, but when you get through it, it becomes very logic. It is a great concept that of Houdini.

saguaro

10-21-2004, 10:14 AM

At first it isn't very easy to use, but when you get through it, it becomes very logic. It is a great concept that of Houdini.

After trying Houdini I came to the conclusion, that there is no principal difference between Maya and Houdini structures. They are both nodal but Houdini gives you full control over its nodes through the interface, while in Maya you have to use programming to achieve similiar level of flexibility.
Just thoughts...
:rolleyes:

MatrixNAN

10-22-2004, 01:50 AM

Hey,

Well yes I suspect that is true but like you said it requires programming and we were saying from the stand point of not having to program the system to get the desired effect. Mind you, a person can do anything in any program with enough programming but then again massive amounts of coding is very time consuming and becomes rediculous for the amount of coding you have to which tends to mounts up more and more the further you go. The more complex the system gets then the more difficult it becomes to manage. At which time you have to get people devoted to just managing the code and cleaning it up so that every one can still read it and add to it or edit the code. Sure the argument can be made that if proper coding procedures are followed and the system is designed correctly from the ground up this is not a problem; however, in practice this rarely happens and there tends to be a need to get rid of redunant coding and poor structuring and some generally cleaning up of the code not to mention commenting. Yes I know you can use discriptive coding naming conventions but you still have to have header comments as to what this block of code does. If you don't then that is something you should be doing so that the code is easy to read and navigate to save your coders time in the development process too. Not mention, when they go back years from now to look at the code they aren't going to have the faintest idea what that code does anymore. Sorry this is turning into a rant but I am trying to cover the obvious arguments before they are made. Coding should be avoided when possible because it slows down the production process. The fact of the matter is someone can not write a block of code as fast as another person can click a button.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

CGTalk Moderation

01-19-2006, 10:00 AM

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.